


Pulled From the Wreckage

by AudreyV



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, Guardian Angel, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Near Death, Pining, Possible Character Death, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 13:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18011762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AudreyV/pseuds/AudreyV
Summary: Philippa Georgiou comforts a gravely injured Michael.





	Pulled From the Wreckage

**Author's Note:**

> I love them so much.

“Michael—” Philippa’s voice was in her ear as Michael blinked back to consciousness. Acrid smoke stung her eyes and choked her as she struggled to breathe. A cacophony of alarms and warnings throbbed at the edges of her awareness.

“I've got you,” Philippa said. Michael felt her uniform jacket being unzipped and pushed back. She tried to focus on Philippa but couldn't. She let her eyes drift closed again.

Philippa was leaning over her, ripping her undershirt. Michael wanted to protest but her mouth was dry like cotton and ashes. She’d need to replicate a new shirt— there would be no sewing this one back together.

Michael wrenched her eyes open again. This time she could see Philippa more clearly. Her captain was kneeling beside her, head bowed, looking closely at her abdomen.

“If you wanted my shirt off, you could have asked,” Michael mumbled. Her words slurred into one another. Philippa looked up at her with surprise, as if she hadn't expected Michael to speak.

“The Shenzhou is on its way,” Philippa said quietly. “Everything will be fine. Do you understand?”

Michael didn't.Everything seemed fine already. She was here and Philippa was beside her and what more could she need?Yet a sense of dread was howling at the edges of her mind, because something wasn't right.

“We’re not on the Shenzhou anymore,” Michael realized. “I'm the science officer on the Discovery now.”

She reached down, intending to take Philippa’s hand, but when she looked she saw a duranium rod protruding from her side. She touched it gently and a surge of pain crashed through her.

“Shhhhhh. Just lie still,” Philippa said.

“Philippa… what's happening?”

“There was an accident. That's all.”

“No, I… two distinct possibilities.” Michael groaned. Sweat beaded on her brow. “One, you're the other one.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“The Terran Emperor.” Michael breathed as evenly as she could, fearful of jarring the rod.

“I'm Captain Philippa Georgiou.”

“Then tell me something you'd know that she doesn't.”

“Like what?”

“Tell me—” Michael swallowed hard. “Tell me where we were the first time I kissed you.”

Michael watched Philippa’s face soften, her lips quirking up in a sad smile.

“You haven’t kissed me,” Philippa said. Michael nodded.

“Then it's possibility two. I'm dying or I'm already dead.”

“And I'm the result of your last brain cells firing as your system works its way toward stillness.” Philippa took Michael’s hand and squeezed it. “But wouldn't another option be preferable?”

“Of course it would be. But you told me yourself— there are no second chances.”

Philippa laughed and looked down at Michael, a fond expression on her face.

“That doesn't sound like me. Especially when you consider the Shenzhou was your second chance.”

Michael nodded weakly.

“Sorry,” she rasped. “That must have been the other one. But I don't think that changes things enough to make you any less dead, Captain.”

“If you weren't in danger of bleeding out, I'd show you just how alive I am,” Philippa said.

“And if you weren't a hallucination, I'd take you up on that, even if it was the last thing I ever did,” Michael said. She coughed and felt something warm and viscous in her throat. When she coughed again the blood came out of her mouth. Philippa used the remnants of Michael’s undershirt to gently wipe it away.

“I wish I could do more to ease your pain,” Philippa said quietly.After a long moment, she laid next to Michael on the deck and curled toward her. She laid one of her arms carefully across Michael's chest and kissed Michael’s temple.

“I was so jealous of Stamets, Philippa,” Michael confessed. “That he found a way to snatch the man he loved back from death.He deserved that second chance, they both did but… don't we?”

“The other one isn't your second chance?”

“She is something, but she is not you.” Michael tried to shift her body but the pain from the wound returned with a vengeance when she tried. She laid back against the deck again, resting her head on Philippa’s arm.

“You're very brave,” Philippa said. Michael chuckled under her breath.

“I'm so terrified I've conjured up a hallucination of the woman I let die, to comfort me while I die. That doesn't seem brave at all.”

Philippa reached out and ran her fingers along the side of Michael’s face. She wiped the tears from Michael’s cheek.

“You're making far too many assumptions, sweet girl,” Philippa murmured.

The shuttle lurched and a different set of alarms started ringing. Philippa leaned over and brushed her lips against Michael’s forehead, then her cheek, and finally for the briefest of moments her lips. Then Philippa stood and Michael watched as she activated an input pad on the metallic wrist cuff she wore.

“When you asked before… I should have said ‘you haven't kissed me yet,’” Philippa said with a smirk. “The universe and your place in it is more complicated than either of us could ever imagine.”

Before Michael could respond, Philippa pressed the cuff again and an exoskeleton whooshed into place around her. Michael watched as long as she could, until the red light threatened to blind her, then she closed her eyes and the darkness rushed in.

“Michael—” Philippa’s voice broke through the haze around her. The beeping and background noises were very different now. Michael’s hand went to her side but all she found there was a mesh dressing and new regenerating skin where the gaping wound should have been.

“I'm back on the Discovery?” she asked, turning her attention to the leather-clad woman at her bedside.

“Yes,” Georgiou conformed. “I found you gravely wounded when we tractored your shuttle into the bay.”

Georgiou reached for Michael’s face, but stopped herself. Michael looked at Georgiou’s hands, still stained dark with blood.

“You were bleeding out,” Georgiou mumbled as an explanation. “Now that you've finally regained consciousness I'm going to go get cleaned up.” She turned and strode purposefully away from the bed.

“Did you see the red angel?” Michael called after her, intentionally casual. She saw the woman with her mentor’s face stiffen.

“No,” Georgiou said shortly. “It must have been and gone before we arrived. Tell me of your encounter with it.”

“It’s a blur,” Michael said. She watched as Georgiou breathed a little more easily before adding, “But I can see why you’re chasing the angel so intently.”

“Oh?” Faux surprise that fooled neither of them. “And why is that?”

“You’re on a journey of self-discovery,” Michael said. For the briefest of moments panic flared in Georgiou’s eyes, quickly replaced by a neutral blankness as all her walls went up.

“Rest, Michael,” Georgiou murmured. Her face softened and Michael could almost see her Philippa there. “You've been through an ordeal and barely survived it. Despite what you may think, I have no interest in seeing you die again.”

Georgiou stroked the side of Michael’s face with her cold, bloody fingertips, then turned again toward the door.

“Trust me— we all need you alive,” she said over her shoulder.

Michael’s heart swelled at the possibilities.


End file.
